Friday Insider: Pirates’ front office transformed

[caption id="attachment_8350" align="aligncenter" width="645"]Bob Nutting and Clint Hurdle speak in the PNC Park home dugout before a September game. -- GETTY[/caption]

BY DEJAN KOVACEVIC

Weekly roundup of a lot of randomness from a lot of time around our city's teams …

• Spring training is still several weeks away, but the Pirates will convene next week in Bradenton for minicamp, and not just the players who report voluntarily. It'll also be a gathering for the front office, managers, coaches, scouts, pretty much everyone in baseball operations all under one roof, a great rarity in an increasingly global game.

And man, will this be one giddy gathering, by all accounts.

I spoke with a few of the folks who will be part of this, including some who only two winters ago were bitterly critical of the back-biting, divisiveness and divergent philosophies that were plaguing the operation. Some of that was the natural exhaust of a 20th consecutive losing season. Some of it was men fearing for their jobs and filling the lifeboats. And some of it, of course, was the infamous Hoka Hey escapade.